A Message From Elie

As the new Head of School, I am thrilled to lead a talented group of administrators, faculty, and staff in our commitment to provide families with a strong learning community that will prepare children to have the agency and motivation to be responsible, resilient, compassionate, and collaborative learners able to engage at the highest levels of discourse. Northside is a place where students dare to ask. I know from personal experience just how much the world opens up to you and how far you can go when supportive adults allow you to feed your curiosity.

We are a warm, welcoming, progressive, independent school community of students, parents, and educators right here in the heart of Williamsburg but not limited to Williamsburg. We welcome like-minded families from all of the surrounding areas to join us. We are readers, writers, scientists, chefs, economists, artists, researchers, doctors, tech innovators, athletes, and much more. We are families of all shades, creeds, and configurations. We are friends and neighbors. We are far from ordinary, and we are curious. Being curious is key because at Northside questioning is at the very forefront of what we do. We question.

Questions are in fact more important than answers. They are a sign of understanding. It requires knowledge and then critical thinking to recognize and see what else you’re missing – what you don’t know yet. Questions create the challenges that make us learn. They are essential for social, emotional, and cognitive development. Asking and creating questions allows students to process the world in a wider range of ways. Our focus on thought, inquiry, and understanding, empowers students to take risks and learn to fail so they can learn to rise. Our team of educators use each student’s own curiosity to help set challenges that allow learners to push beyond what they even knew were their possibilities. They become not only intellectually gifted but also motivationally so. Our curriculum allows for the exploration of not only the self but also the other, which gives our Northside students a global cultural competency and perspective.

Northside’s student-centered inquiry approach to learning, which includes challenging students to create meaningful projects, is our road map. We are a community hub for academic research and excellence. Project work that is authentic, engaging, significant, fun, and incorporates 21st century skills is difficult to do well, and yet, that is exactly what families can count on to happen within our school walls. Topics are integrated across the content areas, and for our students there is enduring understanding and a purposeful application of knowledge. We offer a template for future readiness, for success. What this means is that at Williamsburg Northside it is a great place to be a curious kid. Our doors are open! I invite you to come inside!